The " Summer of Sport " Jake, Noah, Peter and Sarah

The Summer of Sport is a lot of fun and unusual courses for agility lovers that comes round once a year.
Here we are having a go at the pairs class.
Donkeys and handlers must do the obstacles smoothly together - well, we tried !
Jake and Noah, Sue and Claire

and

Sarah and Peter, Bart and Sue

Jake and Noah, Sue and Bart

And from July - Sammy does Equagility !

This was our first go at ridden agility - 'equagility' as it's called.
At last Sammy has not been lame for long enough for us to get in some riding.
Pierre was not too impressed because he had to stay in the shelter so that he didn't get in the way.It was getting darker and darker so no time for several 'takes' .
First we had to go round the obstacles on the lead, then again riding.
Sammy was such a good boy first time round but by then Pierre was really jealous so Sammy just HAD to go to visit him and make sure he was ok. THEN he did the ridden round !

An agility catch-up from June

Oh dear there's so much catching up to do after our summer busy time !
We've missed out on our agility in july and september because there's just not enough time to set it up, practice a bit and film it so it's very good to now get back to it.

Here are some of our summer videos :-
June - a new obstacle - the TUNNEL !
Pierre and Sue at Liberty

Bart and Sammy - you can fast forward when he gets to the tunnel.. 

but it was all in a good cause because when Sue had a go.......

well done Sammy !

September Agility with Pierre!

Just uploaded our Liberty Bronze video for September - dear Pierre being Pierre as usual but not helped by plenty of very silly boo-boos by the handler ! (eg walking round side of the box so he thought he should follow ! Tch ! I dunno.........

Also you're not supposed to touch your donkey when doing liberty......

Here's our scores :- 

(for doing the obstacle)/(for good horsemanship)

Where the rope is marked as ‘tight’ between obstacles, food rewards are given between obstacles or there is a break in the flow from obstacle to obstacle 1 mark will be deducted from the next obstacle’s score.
Human Name Sue Kelly
Equine Name Pierre
1.Weave 5/4 handler missed last cone
2.Curtain 5/5
3.Tarpaulin 4/5 stop
4.Closed gap in 4/4 break, not quite far enough in
5.Closed gap out 4/5 not in enough before backing out
6.Scary Corner 5/5 good
7.Pole corridor 2/4 break, stops but good in the end
8.Curtain 4/5  break
9.Pole wheel 5/5
10.Pole wheel other direction 4/5 missed the first pole

Total 89

Donkey Agility Day

On September 13th we had a great day at our Donkey Agility Day

Here we are with our rosettes after the mini competition:

left to right:-

Lucas and jake, Victorien and Welly, Eli and Nigel, Bart and Giffy, Sue and Jasper, Vanessa, Peter and Alison, Jill and Noah

The weather was great , the ground was solid rather than muddy and we had lots of room here in the field. Our coach Vanessa gave us a talk on persuading our donkeys to lead on a loose rope and NOT eat and on how to tell if our donkey was afraid of going over, under or through and what to do about it. We all had a practice then showed off our best obstacle. After dinner we did all the obstacles in turn to earn marks and get a rosette.

The competition was won by Giffy the mule with Bart and Wellington with Victorien in equal first place.

A surprise visitor was Alison from the Donkey Sanctuary who chose to play with Peter, our 4yr old, and managed 3^rd place ! I was SO proud of Pete who has never done anything like this before and definitely not with a stranger.

Next was Lucas with Jake who got all four feet on the pedestal and Jill with Noah.

Then Sue with Jasper who said all the things he does in the stable yard were far more scary in the field ! 

Next was Nigel wit Eli who did much better in the field than he had done before in the yard. Ah well, that's donkey life !

We all had a fun day and look forward to doing it again !